This post is part of the series in Book Recommendations for Kids by Age and Month of the Year. This post has September book recommendations for children who are 6 years old or older. Each book is paired up with additional resources that you can use to extend the story further.
When my daughter was younger, I maintained a diary of our reading activities in weekly What My Child Is Readingentries in my blog. In this post I am featuring books that Smarty was reading on her own in two different years – some when she was almost 6 and some when she was almost 7. While my other entries in the series are focusing on picture books, here I am recommending picture books, non-fiction books, and chapter books, so it can be used for children of different ages depending on their reading skills. Disclosure: I am an Amazon associate and this post contains affiliate links. For full disclosure, please click here and thank you for supporting my blog!

1. Possum’s Harvest Moon

Harvest Moon is the full moon closest to autumnal equinox. This year it shines on the night of September 8. Possum’s Harvest Moonby Anne Hunteris a good book to read on that night or any night of September as it talks through beautiful pictures and simple text about animals celebrating a bountiful summer and getting ready for a long winter ahead. You can discuss with your children how animals prepare for winter and perhaps even make your own model of underground homes like JDaniel’s Mom.

2. Mooncakes

Harvest Moon also signals a very special holiday for many countries in Asia – Moon Festival, also known as Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival. Mooncakesby Loretta Seto illustrated by Renne Benoit tells the legend behind this festival and explains traditional celebrations that include lanterns, special time together for families and friends, and, of course, mooncakes. If you are brave enough for a real paper lantern that can be lighted inside with a small electric candle, Life With Moore Babiesoffers a great tissue paper lantern tutorial.

3. Where the Mountain Meets the Moon

My “Chapter Book of the Month” recommendation extends the topic of China and its beautiful folklore. Grace Lin wrote Where the Mountain Meets the Moonas a modern fantasy set in ancient China. The main character Minli is a poor girl who goes on a heroic quest to change not only her own destiny, but a destiny of her village. This book is too advanced for new readers, but it will make a great read-aloud for this age group. Enchanting Homeschooling Mom created interesting learning activities for this book with some free printables, and we did a detailed study on China.

4. The Moon Seems to Change

You might have noticed the trend in this month recommendations. Yes, we were sort of doing a mini moon unit last September when my daughter entered the second grade. She was asking a lot of questions about the moon phases and we read The Moon Seems to Changeby Franklin H. Branley illustrated by Barbara and Ed Emberley. This Le't’s Read and Find Out book explains the changes pretty well. Smarty could understand the “why” of moon changes (Earth and Moon movements), but not “how” – that was still a bit complicated for her 6 year old brain. Perhaps we will give this book from our home collection another try now when she is almost 8. We might also try some of the moon activities recommended by What Do We Do All Day.

5. Forget Me Nots

My daughter is not very likely to pick a poetry book on her own, so even though she is a very fluent reader I still make a point to read poetry books to her and with her. I didn’t press Smarty to memorize any poems from Forget-Me-Nots: Poems to Learn by Heart, but both of us really enjoyed selections by Mary Ann Hoberman and illustrations by Michael Emberley. This Reading Mama is a reading guru with a passion for teaching poetry and reading poetry, and I really enjoyed her post on Ways to Use Poetry with Kids.

6. The Adventures of an Aluminum Can

The Adventures of an Aluminum Canby Alison Inches is one of my daughter’s favorite books, but I would recommend it only to scientifically curious children who don’t mind long stories. The book is inventively written as a diary of a piece of aluminum and goes over both scientific processes involved in production and recycling and over how aluminum is used. This is a good story to read for Earth Day as well, but my daughter just happened upon this book for the first time in September and keeps bringing it back from the library every three months or so. One great extension activity for this story is to recycle your own tin can into something else, for example, into adorable tin cans robots from The Chocolate Muffin Tree.

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comments:

Great book suggestions, Natalie! We have not read or studied China much and that book looks perfect. I'll have to check our local library. Additionally, I think revisiting the moon's phases would also be great, given that the days are getting shorter and the moon is visible before bedtime now! Thanks for sharing and pairing with such great activities.

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